What could the Met do instead?

The 2019/20 Met season could be jazzed up. I’ve tried to stick with the same composer or style, rather than, say, fifty French operas nobody’s ever heard of.

HANDEL: Agrippina

GLUCK: Orfeo ed Euridice –> Iphigénie en Aulide

MOZART

• Marriage of Figaro –> SALIERI: Tartare (libretto by Beaumarchais) / Axur re d’Ormus, Italian version, libretto by da Ponte
• Così fan tutte –> SOLER: Una cosa rara or SALIERI: La scuola de’ gelosi
• The Magic Flute –> HAYDN: Il mondo della luna

ROSSINI

• La Cenerentola –> Matilde di Shabran [or Maometto II]

DONIZETTI

• Maria Stuarda –> Lucrezia Borgia

VERDI

• Macbeth –> MERCADANTE: Orazi e Curiazi
• La Traviata –> PACINI: Saffo
• Simon Boccanegra –> I due Foscari (or, to show that other mid-19th century Italian composers besides Verdi existed: FORONI: Cristina, regina di Svezia)

WAGNER: Flying Dutchman –> MARSCHNER: Hans Heiling

BERLIOZ: La damnation de Faust –> Béatrice et Bénédict

MASSENET

• Manon –> Grisélidis
• Werther –> either Ariane or Roma

TCHAIKOVSKY: Queen of Spades –> RIMSKY-KORSAKOV: Sadko

PUCCINI

• Manon Lescaut –> PONCHIELLI: La Gioconda
• Bohème –> CATALANI: La Wally
• Tosca –> FRANCHETTI: Germania
• Madama Butterfly –> MASCAGNI: Iris
• Turandot –> MONTEMEZZI: L’amore dei tre re

[Gomes and Wolf-Ferrari could also be performed.]

STRAUSS

• Der Rosenkavalier –> Die schweigsame Frau

BERG: Wozzeck –> SCHILLINGS: Mona Lisa

JANACEK
Kát’a Kabanová

GERSHWIN
Porgy and Bess

GLASS
Akhnaten